


Into The Black

by dracusfyre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, M/M, Prompt Fill, Space Pirates AU, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 18:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: From theImagineTonyandBuckyprompt:I like pirate AUs and drama and damsel!Tony so could someone write one where they were separated and Tony was shanghaied into the slave trade to be sold to the highest bidder. He's auctioned and bought and thinks he's going to be used but thank god it was actually his husband in disguise and they make their escape back to their ship and crew. Aftercare, even if there's no sex. Bucky making sure Tony's alright and he is cause he's not broken so easily. Many thanks!My only addition was PIRATES IN SPACE.





	1. Chapter 1

“I’ve got this!” Tony shouted over his shoulder, fingers flying over the dashboard as he tried to figure out what was going on.  The _JARVIS_ was shuddering, caught in the grip of a far larger ship, and sounds of fighting echoed up from below. “Get everyone else!” 

Bucky’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he hesitated, but after a moment he left the cockpit, sliding down the ladder to the next level with a loud clang as his boots hit the steel grating. Everything else faded away as Tony concentrated, muttering to himself as he fended off the attack to the _JARVIS’_ s mainframe and servers.  Something had managed to get a nasty virus into their shipboard computers and it had crippled their shields, guns, and engines, leaving them careening helplessly through space.

“Fucking pirates,” Tony cursed to himself, and then froze when he felt something cold and hard shaped shoved against his back.

“Aye, fucking pirates. They’re the worst,” a voice behind him laughed, and there was a sharp pain in his head and everything went black.

***

The attack on the  _JARVIS_ ended with suspicious suddenness, the pirates pulling back and disappearing almost between one gun shot and the next.  Bucky scowled, wanting to chase them through the forced airlock and follow them onto their own ship, but he forced himself to let them go.  There would be time later to find these assholes and make them regret their poor life choices. "Everybody sound off," he barked into the comms. "Natasha?"

"Here, and the engine rooms are clear," she said, sounding slightly bored. "No live ones."

"Rhodey?"

"I'm good, and the living spaces are clear."

"Clint?"

"What the hell was all that noise?" He said grumpily, voice still groggy from sleep.  "What do you mean, live ones?"

Bucky closed his eyes and sighed. "Goddammit, Clint. Tony?" There was only dead silence. "Tony?" Bucky asked again, dread curdling his stomach as he started sprinting to the cockpit. "Come on, answer me sweetheart.  Pick up the comms, Tony," he said desperately.  " _Please-_ " 

Rhodey intercepted him at the base of the ladder leading up to the cockpit, face creased with grief and anger. "I'm sorry, Bucky.  They took him."  Bucky stared at him, uncomprehending.  What did he mean,  _took him_? What would a bunch of pirates want with Tony?

Natasha came up behind him, steps slowing as she heard Rhodey's words.  "They took him?" she repeated.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "Okay.  Okay, but he's not dead," she said, putting a hand on Bucky's arm.  "That means we can get him back."

Bucky fell against the bulkhead, burying his head in his hands.  He slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, staring dumbly at the metal grating. "How?" he said dully. "Our engines are down. Navigation is down.  By the time we get the  _JARVIS_ operational again, they could be anywhere."

***

Tony was jarred from unconsciousness by the harsh clang of metal on metal. His eyes flew open with a gasp that was followed by a groan as the light drove a spike of pain through his head.  He closed his eyes tightly and curled onto his side, breathing shallowly as he tried not to throw up.  Every beat of his heart made his head throb unpleasantly.

“Hey, human.” Someone kicked the bars of his cell again, the noise hitting his brain like a sledgehammer. “Wake up.”

Tony groaned and put a hand over his eyes, squeezing his temples. “What?” he managed.

“What are you good for?”

“What?” Tony repeated as he struggled to sit up.  The pounding in his head worsened when he moved but started to ebb a little as he leaned against the bars of the cell. The cool metal was soothing against his back and scalp.  The alien on the other side of the bars was a pretty fucking terrifying thing to wake up to, yellow pupilless eyes and metal teeth that had been sharpened into points. “I don’t-“

“Look, if ye ain’t got skills, we’ll just sell ye as meat, and yer buyer can decide what ye’re good for.” He chuckled nastily, and picked something out of his teeth with a fingernail. “But I figure we found ye in the cockpit for a reason, so. Whatchu good for?”

“Uh, I’m a pilot, yeah.” Tony’s mind kept replaying the words _sell you as meat_ , and between that and the headache he was having a hard time thinking.  “And an engineer. Mechanic. I, uh, make things go.”

The pirate grunted, eyeing him thoughtfully before he turned on his heel and left.  Tony closed his eyes in relief against the glare of the shipboard lights.

“Well. Welcome to the party, mate,” a soft, high voice said cheerfully from somewhere to Tony’s right.  There was more clanging as whoever spoke moved and Tony winced at the noise.

 “Oh god,” Tony whimpered. “Please. Enough.”

“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry,” the voice said, this time at a whisper. “Bit of a concussion there, yeah? Wish I could help, but you know,” Tony heard the sound of chains moving, “we’re all a bit tied up.”

Tony opened his eyes a slit to see what sort of person could make such a horrible joke at a time like this and saw a humanoid pile of rocks in leather armor looking at him, stony features rearranged in a sympathetic look. “Hey.  My name is Korg,” the pile of rocks said softly.

“And him?” Tony gestured at the guard that just walked away.  “Who are these people?”

“Oh, they’re Ravagers, mate. Pirates.”

Tony smothered the rather hysterical laugh that wanted to bubble up at that.  Pirate, yes.  He could have gathered that much.  “Do you know of anyone else who just came on board? With me?”

“No, sorry mate.  You’re the only new guy.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, man.” Korg gestured around the room, and Tony noticed that he was in one of only four cages that were arranged in a semicircle. Only three of them were occupied, and sure enough, Tony didn’t recognize anyone.  “It’s no’ a very big brig, you see.”

“Right.”  Tony sighed, and slid sideways until he was lying on the metal grating again. “Awesome.  I’m Tony, by the way,” he added belatedly.

“Normally I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but under the circumstances that seems a little insensitive.”

“Yeah.” Tony answered absently as he tried to think. There were only a handful places in the galaxy where someone like the Ravagers could unload sentient cargo – Knowhere or Sakaar would be the best bets because that’s where the money was.  Between the two, Knowhere would give him a better chance of getting a message to Bucky.  That these particular pirates were Ravagers was a sliver of good news because they could be negotiated with.  On the other hand, they weren’t called the Ravagers because they tended to be polite and respectful of a person’s bodily autonomy, especially when you happened to be made of squishy meat instead of, you know, _rock._   With that thought in mind, Tony took a deep breath and forced himself to start searching his cell for anything useful.

 


	2. Chapter 2

It took them almost two weeks to limp to the nearest planet where they could get someone to look at the engines, and Bucky felt every minute pass like a knife to the ribs.  Natasha and Rhodey had isolated the virus that had taken out the  _JARVIS'_ s systems, and a tech guy on the planet confirmed their suspicions - there was no way the Ravagers had created something that complex, someone had to have given them the virus.  As the cyborg droned on and on about it, quickly going beyond Bucky's casual knowledge of software programming, Natasha gave him a significant look that Bucky didn't know how to interpret.

"What?" He hissed as they walked back to the docks. 

"I don't think the attack was random," Natasha said under her breath.  "We need to go to Contraxia.  Clint's got a contact there who might be able to help us find Tony."

***

"Hey, human," a Calurnian hissed, banging on the cell bars to get Tony's attention.  "Are you male or female?"

Tony sat up slowly, staring at the Ravager in confusion.  "Male," he said after a moment when the Calurnian's cat-like ears twitched in irritation. "Why?"

It ignored him and marked something on its tablet. "Mated or unmated?"

"Mated," Tony said quickly, getting a bad feeling about where this was going.  "Definitely mated. A lot."

"Offspring?"

"No, not that I know of."  Tony smiled faintly as he thought about what Bucky would have said to that question.  "Not that I've been trying."

"Unfortunate," it muttered as it consulted its tablet and padded softly away. 

Tony scrambled to the front of his cell and called out, "Unfortunate for  _who_?" but the door to the brig was already slamming shut.  "Goddammit," he sighed, and rested his head against the bars of the cell. 

"Cheer up, mate, it's not so bad," Korg said, reaching through the bars of his cell to pat Tony clumsily on the back.  "There, there."

"How is it not so bad?" Tony said bitterly, going back to curl up in his corner of the cell. "We're about to be sold into slavery, as soon as we reach Knowhere or Sakaar.  And that's if I'm lucky.  It's already been over a month since I was kidnapped.  My crew is never going to find me, and I'm never going to see my home again."  He rolled over to lay on his back and stared at the ceiling of his cell, willing the lump in his throat and the stinging in his eyes to go away.

"The good news is that you're not dead yet," Korg said cheerfully.  "I was starting to get worried when we got stuck in that asteroid field."

Tony suppressed a whimper at the memory.  They had been stuck for so long that the rations had gotten low, and more than one Ravager had come by the brig with a hungry look in its eye before the captain managed to find his way out.  Tony had actually stopped bathing for a few days so he would seem as unappetizing as possible.  "Thank you, Korg," he said dryly.  "You're right.  The fact that I haven't been eaten yet makes me feel loads better."

***

Knowhere’s slave markets were a chaotic jumble of fast-talking auctioneers and aliens of all kinds, some with jangling chains and others with jangling pockets.  Korg was sold quickly to a representative from Sakaar because an eight foot tall being made of rock was an attractive prospect for the scouts looking to stock the Grandmaster’s gladiator arena; a human of middling height and age, not so much. Tony tried to melt to the back of the crowd, to look small and unassuming but finally the time came when Tony was shoved to the front of the stage, the auctioneer talking too fast for his brain to translate.  The crowd was a muttering, cackling, clicking crowd of unrecognizable creatures of all shapes and sizes, all staring at him dispassionately.  After a while the number of people bidding dropped and the auctioneer finalized the bid with the drop of his hand.  Tony's stomach dropped when he saw the person who bought him, something vaguely humanoid, eight feet tall and skeletal, body draped in black and features obscured by a metal mask that hummed and whirred with every breath.  Inside his manacles Tony’s hands clenched into fists and he took a deep breath, steeling himself.  There was no way he could let this thing take him away from here; if Bucky was looking for him, his best chance was to stay in one place rather than being dragged across the galaxy again. 

So for a while he walked behind his new owner, as meek a slave as one could want, until they were clear of the crowds of the marketplace and into the lesser used alleyways that led to the ship docks.  As soon as they were alone the creature turned, gloved hands reaching for its mask, but Tony didn’t give it a chance to do whatever it had planned for him.  Ducking low, he kicked out at its legs like Bucky had taught him, pressing the advantage when the gangly alien stumbled.  He tackled it to the ground and wrapped his chains around its throat, gritting his teeth as it struggled.  He was far more willing to be kept in Knowhere’s prison for murder than whatever this thing intended.

With a grunt the alien spasmed all four limbs at once and then Tony’s grip slackened as its limbs seemed to detach and fall lifelessly to the ground.  It took advantage of his surprise and twisted, it’s now much shorter legs scissoring to flip it to its feet.  When it ripped the breathing mask off its face Tony went dizzy with relief, stumbling backwards. “Oh my God, _Bucky.”_

“Tony!” Bucky said urgently, grabbing his arms to keep him upright. “Are you ok?” 

Bucky looked haggard and exhausted, cheeks rough with stubble and dark circles under his eyes, but he was still the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen.  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Christ. Come here.”  They didn’t so much hug as collapse into each other, two leaning pillars keeping the other from falling.  Tony buried his hands in Bucky’s hair and pressed his face into Bucky’s neck, breathing in the smell of soap and sweat and gun oil and home.  Bucky’s arms were tight around his waist and Tony sagged against him, into that strength, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Tony, sweetheart, I’m sorry but we gotta go,” Bucky whispered hoarsely, regretfully, pressing a kiss to Tony’s neck before pulling away.  “I don’t think we’re gonna be safe until we are far away from here.”

Tony wanted to whimper but he just nodded. “Why?” He said as he followed Bucky down the alley, their fingers laced tightly together as they navigated the maze of narrow alleys. “I mean, technically you bought me fair and square.”

“Didn’t you think it was a little weird that you were the only one the Ravagers took?” Bucky said over his shoulder.  "Clint was fast asleep in his bunk, they could have taken him without a fight."

Tony opened his mouth and then closed it again, stumped. “I think I just figured I was the only one taken alive,” he said finally. “Is everyone-”

“Everyone else is fine,” Bucky said, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. “But after we got  _JARVIS_ up and running again, Natasha was the first to realize that you had been the target all along.”  They came around a corner and Tony almost cried when he saw _JARVIS_ there, engines humming quietly.  The hatch opened automatically as they approached and Bucky hustled him inside.  Clint was in the cockpit, feet up on the dash as he scanned through the video feeds and steadily ate his way through a box of Terran donuts.

“We’re good to go,” Bucky called out over his shoulder, still herding Tony towards their quarters.

“Good to have you back, Tony!” Clint called out. “But we’re waiting on Rhodey.”

Bucky paused and backtracked to scowl at Clint. “What in the hell is he doing? I told everyone to stay on the ship so that we could leave as soon as possible.”

“He got a lead on Stane.”

“Oh.” At that, Bucky got a fiercely pleased look on his face. “Ok. We’ll wait.” 

“Stane?” Tony repeated as he followed Bucky to their room. “You mean my dad’s business partner?”

“Yeah.”  Finally the door closed behind them and Bucky wrapped Tony in his arms again. “There’s a lot of stuff to catch you up on,” Bucky said quietly, “but first I’m sure you’d like a shower and some food.”

Tony wrinkled his nose, because what he wanted most was to lie down and feel Bucky’s reassuring weight on top of him, but he knew that after months in a Ravager’s jail with only a bucket and a rag to wash with he probably smelled pretty offensive.  On the upside, Bucky joined him, obviously unwilling to let Tony out of his sight even for as long as it took to wash up.  As they showered, he ran his hands over Tony’s skin, cataloguing every bruise and new scar, tracing fingers over ribs that were a little more prominent than they were a few months ago.  His mouth followed the path of his hands, pressing gentle kisses over every mark. Tony could feel the barely restrained urgency in Bucky’s touch and knew that he was probably hanging on to his control through sheer force of will.

“I’m here, its ok, babe,” Tony murmured, raking his fingers through Bucky’s hair, pulling the wet strands away from his face.  Bucky pressed his lips together tightly and his eyes were suspiciously red as he cradled Tony’s face in his hands and kissed him.

“I’m so proud of you,” Bucky murmured, his voice raw.  “You were so strong, so tough.”

Tony let out a damp laugh. “I tried to kill you.”

“Like I said, I’m pretty fucking proud of you,” Bucky said with a smile. “Since like every time I tried to teach you martial arts ended with us having sex, I’m surprised you remembered anything.”

“I was paying attention,” Tony protested. 

"To my _ass,_ maybe," Bucky said as he turned off the water.  There was food waiting when they got out, and over Tony's protests Bucky bundled him up and made him eat until Bucky was satisfied.  In spite of his best efforts, Tony dozed off almost immediately, the adrenaline crash leaving him boneless and exhausted. Bucky tucked him into their bed, dimming the lights and locking the door; with Bucky's warm, solid body at his back making him feel safe and protected, Tony fell into a deeper sleep than he'd had in months.  Bucky lay with him for a long time, arms wrapped tightly around him, listening to his deep, even breaths, until he heard the engines fire up and felt the slight rocking as they left Knowhere. He reluctantly peeled himself away and found Rhodey in the kitchen, huddled over the table with Natasha and Clint. "What's the news?" he asked as everyone slid over to make room for him to sit.

"It's over," Rhodey said with a grim smile. "I sent all of the evidence we had against him to the authorities as well as his location and had the pleasure of watching him be arrested." Rhodey tapped a few buttons on his communicator and a video materialized above the table, showing Stane falling to his knees as he was tazed by the police. 

"Good work, Rhodey." Bucky sat back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. "But now's the hard part." 

"Telling Tony that his days as a carefree spacefaring pilot are over and he has to go home to run his family's multi-trillion unit company?" Clint said with a look of sympathy.

"And that his old family friend tried to have him killed in order to take over said company?" Natasha added.

Bucky sighed.  "Yeah.  That." 


End file.
